It Came With The Sirens
It came with the sirens,
Heavy with the deadweight
Of language and repetition,
Announced in the quickening
Of the vehicle’s beating heart.
And it came with its war cry,
The gathering argument,
A pantheon whose theatre
Hosted every violent thought.
As the serpent freed Eve,
He beseeched her -
Unfold the creased word,
The fold in the half-word.
March into the fields
And plant your garden.
Tally up the winter’s dead.
Become in the fleeting moment,
That which Adam could not.
It came with the waiting,
The cracked skulls of blackbirds
Scattered for the season,
Unnoticed attendants
To the emerging wreck.
And the rattle in the hum
Became a constant presence,
Seducing men’s hearts
For their love of a witch hunt.
And no one heard the serpent speak,
Words that crept
Towards the absolute,
Their last chance at Eden
Laid out on the asphalt.
And so it went, they buried Eve,
Sang laments to her chastity,
Her love of life,
Adversity and overcoming.
It came with the sirens,
Caught in the wind-tides,
A fold in the narrative
In the avenue’s dim light.
Where movements were virile
And lustful and cost the earth.
And in the fullness
Of their ecstatic throws,
Orchards grow.
Colney Road
Everywhere is grey pebbledash,
The crash of tin cans and thunder;
Of canon-blast and booming laughter.
Everywhere
There is grey.
Where the night scythes down lonely walkers,
Where alleyways meet gardens,
Patched asphalt and grazes.
Here, she asked how is it?
How could thirteen mouths be fed,
Clothes repaired, hair knit?
I’ve asked myself the same, I said.
We enter the boxed house,
Yellow amidst the grey,
Amidst the grey:
A dull reflection.
We enter successors,
To regress to past lives.
Oh, able-bodied son of son of son,
Oh, bearer of bloods
And abuser of wives.
Regret for no sin of yours
But run through these crumbling Victorian sewers.
We enter the yellow house.
The post has piled high.
And in the window there is stained glass,
Fine art finger-marks
In cigarette smoke.
And past the window, masked in shadow,
A hiding place for liquor.
Quiet now, what is that?
Crackled music discordant.
I imitate the rise and hush,
Follow the music up, lightly
Touching heavy steps, to the bedroom.
Oh, bearer of sons and mute emotion
Oh.
My voice resounds in the empty room:
A dull reflection.
Where are you now?
Come back down from there.
Shouting at ghosts gets us nowhere.
Let us sit at this table,
Carve our names
And find lineage, bloodlines
In the pattern and the grain.
And then
The rain.
And everywhere,
Grey: a dull reflection of the heavens.
I walk on into the living room
to sit and smoke and wait.
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